Kevin Duffus is the son of a D-Day veteran (one of the first troop transport pilots over France in the hours before the Normandy invasion) and a distinguished career Air Force officer.
His father’s great-grandfather once served as the representative of the Queen of Madagascar to the Court of Queen Victoria. His mother, an artist and aspiring dress designer (whose great-grandfather, E.I. Horsman founded the Horsman Doll company and whose O’Keeffe family genealogy includes a branch to Georgia O’Keeffe), devoted herself to her husband’s career and their five children but still found time for volunteer work which once involved a close association with Madame Chiang Kai-shek.
Duffus moved with his parents every one to two years, including an assignment at Taipei, Taiwan, until they settled in Greenville, North Carolina when he was 15. He has lived in North Carolina ever since.
At 17, having read the captivating history written by maverick historian David Stick of shipwrecks, lost … Continue...

Duffus takes a provocative approach, but it's based on solid methodology and a really responsible, really deep reading of the sources. So it really adds to our understanding of the past and keeps it alive."

TAYLOR STOERMERColonial Williamsburg historian

No one in the modern era has researched Blackbeard as deeply and thoroughly as Duffus has. He's left no stone unturned in his effort to get at the truth behind all the fabrications, exaggerations and distortions."

J. MICHAEL COBBHampton History Museum curator

I never expected [your lecture] to be so intriguing. I was literally on the edge of my seat for the entire presentation. I laughed, I cried, and I had so many questions to ask. I can’t wait to read more. It was like watching a captivating documentary, but live."

VALERIE BOGGSSouthport, NC

Kevin Duffus unravels one of the greatest enigmas of American maritime history. Thanks to his tenacious scrutiny of government records and impeccable scholarship, we now know the truth about Cape Hatteras’ long-missing lens."

ELINOR DE WIREThe Beachcomber

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Last fall, the The North Carolina Historical Review (July quarterly issue) featured a peer-reviewed article titled, “‘Born in Jamaica, of Very Creditable Parents’ or ‘A Bristol Man Born’? Excavating the Real Edward Thache, ‘Blackbeard the Pirate.’” Following its publication in The North Carolina Historical Review, the article was retitled, “Blackbeard Reconsidered: Mist’s Piracy, Thache’s Genealogy,” […]